Integrating web application with email marketing software

[Cornish Steve]

A few months back, I remember someone asking about email marketing software, and the most popular appeared to be MailChimp. I understand that at this type of application, you can do all kinds of things manually at the application itself, but is it also possible to integrate with another web application?

For example, if someone purchases something at our system, or publishes a course for the first time, or does any one of a number of other things, is it possible to send a message in real-time to the email system directing it to "Send message #54" to user "Superman" at "[email protected]"? Do these email products usually publish an API of some sort to achieve this?

 

[cmcp]

don't know about mailchimp but I've worked on other sites where this happens easily enough.

The mailing list provider should have some sort of bridging script (or API) that will allow you to match up your database to theirs, and should include some intelligent features (eg won't add if previously removed).

I do this with a PHP site where user signs up, if checked mailing list field gets added to "email-list" table. I run a cron job every few hours to run a simple PHP script that inserts email addresses where approved = 1, into the mailing list database.

All CRM is then handled on the mailing list database.

 

[Ash77]

I've never really looked for something to do this for me, i've always just used PHP too, you can also pipe emails from and address straight to your own script if you like. If you need more details on this let me know.

An example

You could have a script that scanned through an email to look for keywords then build a response giving you links to those keywords in a knowlagebase. I've used this before for instant support before the real person gets a chance to get back to the end user.

 

[Peter Bowen]

I've done this with a couple of email sending engines.

Mailchimp does have an api http://www.mailchimp.com/api/

You might find that someone has already built something that does most of what you want it do do.

If not you're welcome to give me a shout and you can explain what you want to do and I'll try and tell you how you could get it done.

Cheers

Pete

 

[Cornish Steve]

Thanks for the information. I was going to follow up by PM, but let me keep the discussion public in case it's relevant to others.

Here's a specific example. You sign up as a new user of a web-based application. Next day, you refer the service to me, and I sign up too. In my profile information, the system notes your name as the referring party.

A few days later, I decide to purchase some usage credits at the system - i.e., the event is my first purchase of credits. Not only does the system add these purchased credits to my account, but it also adds a number of bonus credits. Further, it adds some bonus credits to your account.

At this point, two emails will go out (sorry the wording is rather amateur, but you can see what I'm driving at):

1) The first email comes to my email address: "Dear Steve. Thank you for purchasing credit at the system. Since this is the first time you've purchased credit here, we've awarded you some bonus credits as a small 'thank you' gift."

2) The second email goes to your email address: "Dear Pete. A short while ago, you kindly referred Steve to our system. We're delighted to let you know that Steve has become an active user and recently purchased his first usage credits. As a small 'thank you' gift, you'll see that we've added some bonus credits to your account."

Both message #1 and message #2 are standard messages - but they include references to two usernames (Steve and Pete). Could I define each standard message at an email marketing system like MailChimp, somehow prompt that email system to send messages to users whenever a first purchase is made, and somehow pass along the two user names so they can be included in the messages?

Of course, I'm thinking of sending email messages under many different circumstances, and there will be parameters other than username (maybe current balance, period of inactivity, etc.). I gave a specific example, but I'm looking for a more general solution. I guess I could send all emails directly from my application, but it would seem to make sense to use a well-established 3rd party system.

 

[Peter Bowen]

Hi Steve,

I'm with you on integrating with well established stuff instead of building your own. Mailing packages like this are usually better at bulk mailing but they could probably work for this too.

Imagine your letters reading something like this:

"Dear [user_firstname]. Thank you for purchasing credit at the system. Since this is the first time you've purchased credit here, we've awarded you some bonus credits as a small 'thank you' gift."

and...

"Dear [referrer_firstname]. A short while ago, you kindly referred [user_firstname] to our system. We're delighted to let you know that [user_firstname] has become an active user and recently purchased his first usage credits. As a small 'thank you' gift, you'll see that we've added some bonus credits to your account."

You would have to send 2 instructions to your mailing program as part of the transaction flow:

1. Send welcome letter to [user_firstname]
2. Send referral thank you letter to [referrer_firstname] about [user_firstname]

Most of these mailing programs allow you to define some custom fields which could be used to do this.

Next question

 

[cmcp]

TBH I would send your application specific emails from the app. But if you really wanted to outsource it I would take a look at Active Campaign. They have complex autoresponder options, so you could run a cron job to populate the mailing list database with updates.

As a rough example, you would have the mailing list table set up with a number of fields: customerID, firstname, surname, email, datejoined, birthdate, location, purchase, referralthanks.

When the user registers, the cron job populates the registered details (custID, firstname, surname, email, datejoined, birthdate, location). You can set up an autoresponder to send when registered.

When the user makes a purchase, the purchase field in your app increments from 0 to 1, so when the mailing list database updates you can set an autoresponder to send "WHERE purchase = 1". You could set up autoresponders at set intervals for example when "WHERE purchase = 10" or whatever.

When the user makes a referral you could have the same setup - a different autoresponder is set up for when the value in referralthanks is recognised as > 0.

To be honest this is quite a long way about going about it, but it will work. Quite how scalable it is I'm not sure, we use a very simplified version of this for mailing list management with some of our sites.

 

[Peter Bowen]

Many ways to skin this cat.

I'm off to bed now but I'd be happy to discuss this over skype at a more civilized hour.

Cheers

Pete

 

[Cornish Steve]

Plenty of good advice, and plenty for me to think about. Thank you!